This month, I'll be finally merging my wife's and my finances together. One credit card, one bank account, etc. The tricky decision looks to be the cel phone. She's currently got a TDMA Nokia 3000-series phone that's ready to die, serviced by Cingular, who's at some point going to drop TDMA service. I've got a snazzier Nokia 5100 (world GSM) with T-Mobile. I use loads of minutes, she uses relatively few.

My temptation is to stick with T-Mobile, but the prices for two phone "family" plans are essentially the same. At T-Mobile, $70/month gets you two phones serviced with 850 minutes plus unlimited nights, weekends, and mobile-to-mobile. At Cingular, it's $60/month for the service, plus $10 for the second phone -- no difference. Both are GSM.

Now that Cingular and AT&T Wireless have merged, making Cingular the top-dog of U.S. cellular service, presumably they'll have good GSM coverage, at least once they finish doing all of their integration. On the other hand, I've never been unhappy with my T-Mobile service, plus I have a grandfathered international roaming rate that varies by country, but is generally much cheaper than the flat $1/minute rates they offer customers today.

Presumably, I can play "customer retention" games with either company to make them cough up a decent phone to replace my wife's old Nokia. Since our next car is likely to have Bluetooth, I want to get that on the new phone. Since a clam-shell seems to be the right answer for my wife, I'm leaning toward a Motorola V600 (T-Mobile) or V551 (Cingular). Both are quad-band phones with all the bells and whistles. Anyone with personal experience with either phone here? Any other thoughts on how I might handle the cel phone merger?